LAYTON, Utah, July 15, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — A law enforcement officer was arrested by his contemporaries for allegedly stalking his former live-in girlfriend.
Austin Levi Christofferson, 33, was arrested Thursday night, the same day his ex-girlfriend contacted the Davis County Sheriff’s Office, per arrest documents, to report she had been stalked by him since their December breakup.
Christofferson, a Layton police officer, was booked into jail on suspicion of third-degree felony stalking. “A lethality assessment protocol was completed and showed the victim to be in high danger,” according to a probable cause affidavit.
Deputies checked text message and phone call records, finding well over 200 contacts by Christofferson in the past two weeks.
Content wasn’t generally revealed except relating to a July 2 text sent to the woman of a picture of them together with blood on the image. The woman told officers Christofferson had threatened suicide over the breakup, the affidavit states.
Christofferson texted the woman 68 times and called her 35 times between June 29 and July 2, according to the documents. From July 2 to July 12, the day before she called the sheriff’s office, he sent 109 text messages and called her 29 times, police said.
The woman said Christofferson would show up at her residence uninvited and unannounced, sometimes wearing his uniform and in his police vehicle.
She said she hadn’t previously reported the behavior because she feared his influence with fellow police officers and felt mentally and emotionally abused by the content of his texts and phone calls.
